What a strange question to ask, and yet I find myself asking this of myself more and more often.

I love to read, and I do read often, but at the same time I still find myself looking for more stuff to read while having plenty of stuff to read.

Since 2008, since I first bought an Ereader, I have been on a quest to replace my entire paperback library with the electronic version of it. Given that my library was a thousand books plus it seemed a daunting task, and an expensive one. But with enough time, patience, and a willingness to look in the darker corners of cyberspace when money became an issue, I was able to do it.

After clearing that goal it should have been the end. My aim was to be able to carry around the library I had built in the physical world, and to that I was successful. However, with that in hand, I fell victim to the vice of greed. I kept buying, kept hunting, kept err. . . .acquiring.

So yesterday I pushed the book count on my reader to just over four thousand. And again I thought I must be done. Four thousand is a good number. If you're in between three and four you're always thinking about getting to four. But if you're at the beginning of four it's so far away from five that to make the trip would be almost not worth it. I have more than I can read in a lifetime, or at least for the next twenty years.

Thus today I was reading Robin Hobb's Forest Mage, and the bug to find more hits me again. I find myself putting down the Ereader, getting on the computer, and hunting again. Here's the kicker-every search, every legitimate bookstore, every result that pops up I've seen it already.....nothing new.

Is it a sign, I wonder. Can it be there are no more oceans to cross, and all that explorer jazz? Was the quest to buy, and or. . . ."cough" acquire all those books more fulfilling than actually having them? When is Enough 'Enough'?

I'm not really asking anybody what they think of this. I'm sort of asking myself, but putting my thoughts into a forum for book lovers just feels right. I still think the Ereader is the greatest thing to happen since music went digital, and to say I have more books than music is an awesome thing. But sometimes a kid in a candy store can still get sick from eating too much candy.

PS-Is there a Willy Wonka for bookworms, and if so, how awesome would it be to win a lifetime supply of books?

It burns my brain. Five thousand is an awesome number. It's half of ten thousand. Oh, how it tortures my OCD. The wife tells me I have more than enough. But five thousand!

No. NO. NOPE! I can't do it. I'd have to start digging into public domain works to reach that number. I technically have enough books to reach said number, but I've tried with my library to only put in authors I might actually read. I'm sure someday when I'm an invalid at ninety, and have lost the will to live I might even read the Twilight Series.

I don't have an acquisition oriented nature, am not particularly material and love to keep 'things' forever that have importance to me (but regularly get rid of 'junk', though there's never much because I don't buy 'things' for the sake of it).

However, hmmmmm, I sometimes feel the 'urge' to acquire whole series of books that I will probably never to get to reading because there is so much darn else to read!!

Now that I'm into a very large and time consuming non-fiction project, in the sense that it will take years of knowledge acquisition, it makes even less sense to 'want' to acquire the freebies even that crop up with regularity in the genres I like in the threads I continue to subscribe to.

Yes, it's like a compulsion!!! And whilst I am aware of it, it doesn't make it less compulsive!

So, whilst you may not have been looking for company you certainly have it with moi.

Is it a sign, I wonder. Can it be there are no more oceans to cross, and all that explorer jazz? Was the quest to buy, and or. . . ."cough" acquire all those books more fulfilling than actually having them? When is Enough 'Enough'?

Just consider yourself a collector who is building the finest collection of ebooks ever. Once you're in this mindset, numbers are meaningless

I completely understand your dilemma. I have roughly the same amount of books, and have replaced all of my physical library and then some. I am one of those if I like a series, I must have the whole series, or if I like an author I want everything by him or her. Then I spend hours fixing cover art and tags on calibre. I probably spend more time maintains and organizing my library than reading lol. It is definitely an addiction!

Well, I can relate, but in a different way. I assumed I would never get an e-reader. Not only did I figure I wouldn't enjoy the digital book experience, I simply couldn't afford new books these days and have been availing myself of all that a big-city public library has to offer.

Then, just a few months ago, a friend gifted me with a Kindle and a 500 gig hard drive containing over 62,000 titles. And that's not counting the PDF's.

Now I spend my time cleaning up the database, then I read a book I never would have thought of reading, then I clean a little more. You never know where life will take you, do you?

These were all books which your friend was legally allowed to give you, I hope. MobileRead VERY STRONGLY DISCOURAGES eBook piracy and we will not permit these forums to be used to encourage criminal activities.

Well, I can relate, but in a different way. I assumed I would never get an e-reader. Not only did I figure I wouldn't enjoy the digital book experience, I simply couldn't afford new books these days and have been availing myself of all that a big-city public library has to offer.

Then, just a few months ago, a friend gifted me with a Kindle and a 500 gig hard drive containing over 62,000 titles. And that's not counting the PDF's.

Now I spend my time cleaning up the database, then I read a book I never would have thought of reading, then I clean a little more. You never know where life will take you, do you?

But with enough time, patience, and a willingness to look in the darker corners of cyberspace when money became an issue, I was able to do it.

It's not that dark in cyberspace. 'Enough' will come when your habit attracts attention to your IP address and someone knocks on your door, confiscates your computer, and closes the cuffs on your hands. It happens and your habit coupled with your desire to publicly confess your sins, post your address and occupation in your profile, and possibly pursue this hobby using government computers is reckless.